Last year, she led the student newspaper\u2019s staff of nine to awards from both the Colorado Mesa College Media Days and Colorado High School Press Association.<\/p>\n
Her greatest task: deadlines.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most challenging part of being the editor of the Panther Press is keeping everyone on deadline,\u201d said the 17-year-old. \u201cWe are all busy students and athletes, so it is sometimes difficult to manage our time effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n
A member of the National Honor Society, the French and Spanish Club, the Knowledge Bowl team, the cross country team and an alumni for High-School Leadership Montezuma, Lock\u2019s utmost reward as editor-in-chief of the monthly publication is simply the final product.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is nothing more exciting to an English nerd than seeing one\u2019s own work \u2014 which sometimes includes blood, sweat and tears \u2014 in newsprint,\u201d Lock said.<\/p>\n
Constantly connected via smartphone, Lock is part of the i-Generation, or Generation Z, of Americans who have been attached to digital technology from birth. Despite the group\u2019s umbilical cord to electronic information, Lock is bucking her peers and keeping it old school.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou cannot replace the aesthetic pleasures a newspaper can bestow upon its readers,\u201d she explained. \u201cAs an editor, I feel privileged to be a part of that purist resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Holding a newspaper hasn\u2019t stopped Lock from embracing emerging trends in journalism. She has also enjoyed digital story-telling assignments initiated in her Montezuma-Cortez High School photography class.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbby challenges herself in every project and serves as an excellent role model,\u201d said photography teacher Sharon Englehart.<\/p>\n
Acclaimed by student peers as an intelligent and fun hard worker, Lock said she enjoys being attuned to the various activities that go on in the classroom and the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a student journalist, it makes me more aware of my surroundings,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
After high school, Lock plans to pursue an English degree in college, and possibly join the Peace Corps before finding a profession.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dream occupation is to teach internationally, perhaps at the American International School of Cape Town in South Africa,\u201d said the daughter of Louis and Roberta Lock.<\/p>\n
As a young journalist, Lock said it\u2019s difficult narrowing down her favorite writer, but if she had to pick one, it would American Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist John Steinbeck.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe political undertones and his character development in \u2018The Grapes of Wrath\u2019 blew me away,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n